Ok everyone thinks that catalitic converters rob horsepower because back in the 70's they were big, inefficent, and restrictive but with todays technolgy its actaully possible to get great milage, horsepower and still save the environment.

But thats not the point I want to bring up. All new cars have placed the catalitic converter bassically right off the exhaust manifolds because it needs to reach like 1300 degrees before it "lights off" and the closer it is to the engine the faster you start saving the environment.

I am doing up an exhaust system and I want to do a side exit because it just looks much cleaner than a muffler hanging out the back. That means I have to put the largest round muffler possible where the catalitic converter usually resides... So I wanted to get a high flow cat and put it pretty much right off the exhaust manifolds and put some sort of stick on tin/insulation heat bearier on the fire wall. Good idea? This is not only to have cleaner exhuast (not a porblem in my province with no testing what-so-ever) but mainly to quiet the exhaust down because I wont have a proper muffler with baffels. (I might have to use a resonated tip to but I hope not to).

Anyways this is on a 3.1 and I want to do my system mandrel bent aluminized piping, in 2.5" any ideas or suggestions?

I would say the Cat idea is done already. Look on the Furd Focuses, it sits vertical basically going down as a part of the down pipe. It's a stubby sucker and for the muffler... I don't look into mufflers much, because I don't use them since when the factory one falls off, I go with straight flow loudness.My personal pref.

theres plenty of room below to mount both a cat and glasspack type muffler (only thing that really tucks up in there) and most cats only need to reach 600* to light off. I would be pretty scared to put a cat that close to the rack.

I've had issues with the stock downpipe rubbing the firewall when I had broke my passenger upper motor mount. In reverse it would rub. Not sure if a cat would fit, especially one that's big enough to flow well..

Hey thanks for all the posts I heard a Mach1 Mustang roar by the other day I am not sure with aftermarket exhaust or not but it sounded so hot. I am thinking now of just running 2.25" mandrel bend pipe over the rear axle then into a Flowmaster 40 series and myabe put a resonator if I need too. Thoughts? Sound clips?